Utility Program to Add Metadata to MP4/MOV files.

[neebah]

So a few months ago I created a little Utility program that creates a duplicate of an iOS mov file or an MP4 file with the following metadata in place (so it can be viewed properly in the iOS photos app).   

1.  Software
2.  GPS (via reverse geocode address lookup or gps coordinates). 
3.  Camera
4.  Date

In general I found that this works perfectly for iOS mov files and files that have been converted to MP4 with a utility like handbrake. 
The utility is hit or miss on files that have been recorded into MP4 from the original source.  Most of the time it would work perfectly after I converted it from MP4 to MP4 in handbrake.  I also want to not that this utility does not alter the original file.  It creates a duplicate with the metadata in place. 

What I'm curious to know is if there is a need or desire for the utility amongst the community. 

[Phil Harvey]

There have been a number of requests recently for writing MP4 files.  Most of them were for the feature of changing existing date/time tags, but I think that a utility to add the information you mention would be useful, especially if you could make it work for all MP4 files.

- Phil

[neebah]

It actually changes (or adds) the date time metadata that iOS reads directly.  It doesn't change the file date/time.  Also like I said it works on iOS mov files and some mp4 files (some cameras didn't encode well and resulted in playback problems after using the utility).  I found that if the mp4 files were converted to mp4 (weird) with handbrake then the playback problems were not present after using the utility).  I'll look into packaging this up, cleaning it up and posting it. 

[Phil Harvey]

Yes.  I was talking about  metadata date/time tags, not filesystem tags.  ExifTool changes some of them, but it doesn't have the ability to add any.

The problem you may be having is that some MP4/MOV files contain seek offsets at the start of the file.  You must either update these offsets or avoid changing the location of the video data in the file.

- Phil

[neebah]

I'll check into that.  I thought I had accounted for that. 

[aikinai]

neebah, I would love to use it if you ever got around to polishing that utility! Did you end up making any more progress on it, or do you still have plans to release it?